This blog is mostly about Religious Art, but I try to mix other topics in to keep it interesting.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Religious Art in the News? Judith Butler

I always love it when I see spontaneous religious art! This piece was seen on the Bryn Mawr College campus where Judith Butler is scheduled to give three talks this month, full story here.

I vaguely remember reading her work when I studied Post-Modern theory during my Anthropology days, which honestly, I would rather forget (the theory part). However, now that I'm in another degree program, the idea of gender performance is coming up a lot.

She also spoke recently at the Occupy Wall Street site, and I was impressed:

In October 2011, Butler attended Occupy Wall Street and, in reference to calls for clarification of the protesters' demands, said, "People have asked, so what are the demands? What are the demands all of these people are making? Either they say there are no demands and that leaves your critics confused, or they say that the demands for social equality and economic justice are impossible demands. And the impossible demands, they say, are just not practical. If hope is an impossible demand, then we demand the impossible — that the right to shelter, food and employment are impossible demands, then we demand the impossible. If it is impossible to demand that those who profit from the recession redistribute their wealth and cease their greed, then yes, we demand the impossible."

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

She teaches a Berkeley, which surprises me in a way. It surprises me because when we visited UC Berkeley, I was horrified at the injustice within its own community. As an outsider who happens to have worked with the homeless population, I was truly mortified by what seemingly was an act of compliancy and failure to address its own homeless population. My daughter’s friends, students at Berkeley, affectionately referred to these individuals as “Hobo’s”. The “Hobo’s” opening abused their bodies with drugs and some accosted others with verbal and physical violence. I was so moved that I wrote a letter to Robert J. Birgeneau, Chancellor. I mentioned that I was horrified at the “normalization” of this situation and I referred him to an organization/movement called Common Grounds. I am REALLY surprised that she could work amongst such injustice.

On another note, I did a search… “Is Judith Butler a Christian?” This was interesting and profound as many other searches popped up asking “Is Judith Butler a Feminist, married, queer, post modernist, Jewish, intersex, for gay marriages, etc…….?”. What this said to me is that she is a remarkable individual that has a gift to speak to many audiences – inspiring thought provoking questions. Her words are truly androgynous – transcending even beyond gender. Thank you, Judith Butler for all your contributions to humanity.

Carl Sagan Quotation

W.H. Auden Quotation

"A daydream is a meal at which images are eaten. Some of us are gourmets, some gourmands, and a good many take their images precooked out of a can and swallow them down whole, absent-mindedly and with little relish."